Swallow your Soul
by Silk-Woven-Bones
Summary: This was made for the 2018 Welcome to Hell Big Bang. Human characters are of college age. There's a problem, it's not the usual insomnia or bad dreams. It's the blackouts. Everytime Jonathan passes out, he wakes up with a new corpse in his possession. The demon haunting him, Sock, proves himself to be useless in finding out why Jonathan can't resist these new urges.


I've also been provided with a link to fan art made by LadyMuffy! They're really good and are pretty much spoiler free! Go check those out!

They can be found on her tumblr LadyMuffy on tumblr. Thanks so much!

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The sound of dirt crunching became white noise. It was going at a constant rate, Jonathan felt he had to keep going. He wanted to listen to music when he first started, but he had to keep an ear out for anything that might notice him. His hands felt raw from the amount of time they tightly held to the wooden handle of the shovel. But the hole had to be deep enough and he had to cover it up before dawn. His task was almost finished and so he forced himself to complete it. The pain in his hands grew numb. The air was cold and heavy, the blood on Jonathan's clothes had cooled and just made his clothes feel like cinder blocks on his shoulders.

The gnawing stress in the back of his head kept edging him to hurry up and finish. Any anger he felt had to be ignored, it wouldn't help. He never had to bury a corpse before and he didn't want to fuck it up. His distaste towards the constant sound of falling dirt was the only thing helping keep his thoughts straight. There was no time to think of how to clean the blood from his clothes. There was no time to try and identify who exactly this person was. Jonathan couldn't afford getting caught, it wouldn't be fair if he went to jail for something that wasn't his fault.

After a few more minutes, he could breathe. The body was now deep enough to where it shouldn't catch any hiker's attention. Hopefully no animal would burrow into the ground and drag up any fingers or limbs either. Jonathan restlessly kicked around leaves and dirt and tried to make the turned-up dirt look natural.

Chirping of crickets and croaking of frogs quickly filled the silence the dirt once filled. He breathed deeply, noticing how painful it was to breathe. His own spit tasted sour.

Jonathan moved quickly, taking care not to trip and fall onto his own shovel. Now he just needed to worry about leaving the area without leaving a trace or bringing anything back with him. The woods were thick and the trees were towering. The tops of the bare trees hid the moonlight, holes through the branches letting in small pillars of light. The trees peered down at him and watched every step.

Upon getting to his car, Jonathan threw the shovel into the trunk of his car and nearly collapsed into the driver seat. His heart beating faster than the breaths he struggles to choke down. His body feeling hot from anxiety, sweat dripping from his skin soon became cold from the stagnant air in his car. Retrieving the car key from his coat pocket, Jonathan shoves them into the ignition and lets the life of the car return. The headlights were kept off until he found the pathway he came into the forest through.

He stayed quiet the entire two-hour drive. He dares not turn on the radio or even turn on the heat to scare away the winter cold. The distance out of town might have been excessive, but Jonathan needed as much distance as he could get from his crime.

"No, it's not my fault, it's not my fault. "Jonathan mumbled quietly. He could barely remember anything before the drive down to the isolated forest. He struggled to gather bits and pieces, every time he tried to connect one event to another, all it did was cause his head to throb. The headaches were so intense that he swore he could feel his brain pulse in his skull.

Upon entering the streets of his neighborhood, Jonathan's eyes flickered towards the digital clock on his radio. It was nearly 6 A.M. The sun begun to peak above the horizon line of the city further away from his neighborhood. The closer he got to home, the more he saw that the drive way was empty and that the garage door way shut. Jonathan swallowed a knot that had settled into his throat and tried to pick a lie that he'd made up on the way back. There was a fifty-fifty chance that his mother was home from work early.

Whether she was home or not, Jonathan hurried, wanting to get inside as quickly as possible. He parked in the driveway and left his car how it was before he entered it last night. He looked up and down his streets before he got out of the car and made a mad dash for the front door. Jonathan made a silent prayer that no one was out and would turn their attention towards him. He'd clean up the rest of his mess in his car later, he just had to get inside and make it look like he had never left.

Jonathan locks the door and shuffles through his home, quickly removing his shoes with one fell swoop and carrying them with him to his room. The house was silent and still, Jonathan tried to keep it as such and practically tip-toed to his room. His heart leap when he heard a door slam. It was muffled, quiet. It had to have come from a few feet outside of the front door.

Now knowing the house was empty, he drops everything once inside his room, throwing off dirty clothes, hiding them under the bed, and then getting into bed. He curled up under the sheets and heavy comforter, turned away from his bedroom door.

The front door's deadbolt shook. Jonathan's heart pounded against his feeble ribcage. Had he remembered to lock up everything? Would it be strange for there not to be frost on his car windows? Would she even notice anything out of the ordinary? All these questions left Jonathan's head as he heard the front door slightly squeak upon opening.

Upon counting the seconds, waiting to hear his mother's voice, Jonathan's anxieties curl to the back of his brain and letting the force tugging at his eye's nerves take him. He hadn't notice the exhaustion that set into his body and unknowingly passed out.

Creeping blackness.

A darkness, suffocating and choking. Spider legs scurrying among a wet cavernous hole.

Blood seeping from pores. Thumping and throbbing, leaking out from a billion pin pricks.

Like a UV drip, fusing with your veins until you are one with the machine.

Cancer, sucking and gargling, swallowing your insides whole, black hole.

A massive lump, protruding from a throat, can you see your baby right under your nose?

A billion baby spiders nuzzled at the pit of your gut, suckling the pores.

Ashes around the rim of a candle's glass.

Feed your babies.

Die.

"Jon- "Jonathan jumped, his vision being first greeted with paralyzing, dark eyes. Eyes that belonged to a waking, undead horror. "Where were you last night?" It took a few seconds before his head caught up with him. He sighed upon realizing he had just woken from a dream. It was his loathsome hell-bringer, Sock. The demon rose from Jonathan's bedside, practically floating into the air with a motion slyer than a cat's walk. Sock folded his arms and crossed his furry imp-ish legs across the other. Watching Sock as he had a million times before made Jonathan forget the events of his dream.

"You made me kill someone." Sock's expression melted from sly to insulted.

"Wait, what do mean?" Sock didn't receive a verbal answer, rather he got two hands squeezed around his neck. Jonathan had seemingly leapt from his bed and pinned the demon down to the carpet.

"I'll tell you where I was! I was burying someone in the middle of the fucking woods! And I want to know why there was a dead body for me to get rid of in the first place!" Jonathan growled from gritted teeth. Sock let out strangled chokes in response, it was unclear if they were struggle for breaths he didn't need or out of pleasure. Resisting the urge to squeeze tighter, Jonathan loosened his grip to get some sort of answer. "Did you possess me last night? Cause I can't remember shit."

"You know I wouldn't come inside of you without permission." Sock said flirting.

"Bullshit."

"That was one time like 5 years ago! C'mon! It was life or death." Sock said, trying to defend himself. "Last night, I decided to actually get some sleep instead of mercilessly pester you." Jonathan glared at Sock, waiting for the demon to fall apart once enough guilt bubbled inside and boiled over. After a few minutes of glaring and arguing, Jonathan had admitted defeat and let the demon go.

"Jon, I don't know what happened last night. Maybe I'm starting to get to ya!"

"You're getting to me like a barking puppy to a deaf person."

"That just tells me that you think I'm adorable."

"Adorably pathetic." Jonathan quipped this as he started to change into a clean set of clothes. He looked around the room, seeing if there was anything strange or out of place. Other than the bloody clothes in his hands, there wasn't anything obviously wrong. "Is mom home?"

"She's not my responsibility."

"And I am, right?"

"Duh, why do you even ask?"

"I want you to do a sweep of the house while I get ready for school."

"Why would I do that for you if I can just stay by you and make sure you don't do anything murder-y?

"Because I'm sure you'd love to lose your job if something in the house killed me before I could." With a sigh of defeat, Sock obeyed and drifted into the attic above them, presumably starting his search there.

Jonathan checked under his bed for the clothes from last night. They were still there, not smelling quite yet. He wrapped a towel around them and shoved them into his messenger bag. He'd hide them in his car for now and find a way to dispose of them later. After dressing himself in casual school attire, consisting of a white tee and baggy jeans free of blood, he left his room and made his way towards the kitchen.

"Hey mom." Jonathan said as he wiped the genuine sleep away from his eyes. He begun to shift through the cabinets for something to eat.

"Are you okay, Jon? It's been a while since you've slept in this late. Do you think that you'll be able to go to class tonight?"

"Yea, Ma… I just had a bad nightmare and I had a hard time getting back to sleep."

"Make sure to write it down and tell your therapist. And tell me if you need me to take off work for a little bit so you don't wear yourself thin before your sister comes to visit us. She won't be as nice about it as me." Jonathan's mother said with a reassuring smile. "Ugh, what am I saying, she probably already knows, she's always had a knack for those sorts of things." Jonathan gave her a nod, getting ready to reply until the house phone's ringing took her attention first.

Jonathan carried on with his usual mid-afternoon ritual from that point. He made a late breakfast, had his coffee blacker than usual, took a shower, did his chores, and prepped himself to go to class later that afternoon. He took a slight detour from his usual routine and took a close look at everything. Nothing looked different or out of place, nothing to signify something awful had happened the previous night before.

Still dumbfounded, Jonathan went to his car, bringing his bag with him and getting ready for his commute to his classes. Once he was sure he was out of ear range from his mother and anyone else in the neighborhood, Jonathan began to mumble to Sock. The demon had made himself present shortly after Jonathan exited the house.

"Did you find anything?"

"Nope, none of the knives have been moved, no mystery bodies, and no strange black shadows that aren't my doing. I guess I gotta stick to you like glue now."

"Like you weren't before?" With this reply, Jonathan threw up the trunk of his car. The shovel was indeed still there, covered in dirt. He looked closer at the tool, trying to see if it was the shovel that belonged to his family. The rod was wooden, the handle a soft foam, and the spear end had slight traces of a sticker that wouldn't ever come off. It was his family's shovel. He grabbed the bundle of clothes from his bag and threw it in with the shovel.

"We're gonna make a detour after class. I need to find a place to burn my clothes and ditch the shovel."

The only hitch in Jonathan's drive to class was hearing a missing person's report over the radio. He promptly switched the station off and let Sock's rambling keep his attention. He went through the usual motions his community college classes brought him. He suffered through another horrible writing assignment for his English class and hoped his wrist wouldn't cramp up. Then had to rely on watered down vending machine coffee to sit through a 3-hour lecture class for a chemistry class his unbelievably, terribly ill-advised, advisor recommended he take to fill his credit quota for his degree. But the last class of the night was the reason he woke up in the middle of the day. Good old 'Capitalism and You: The Reason why Humanity is Doomed for the Sake of Profit!'

Jonathan plopped himself down in his seat, giving nothing but a look to Sock. A wordless nod that Jonathan used to tell his-sort of friend to behave himself. He only ever co-operated with the tired human's pleas to amuse himself

"You look like piss." Jonathan turned his head to the seat next to him. The voice belonged to his friend Lil. "Insomnia flare up?" Lil inquired as she sat down, she started to search through her bag to find something, her long, dark purple hair obscuring her face.

"Pfft, I wish."

"Then what's with the bags and hoarse voice?" Lil said as she looks up at him, motioning to her own eyes.

"I can't say much here, but I think I killed someone." Lil froze. Eyes locking on Jonathan and staring blankly.

"…Like, hit and run?"

"I can't remember, there's just nothing that comes to mind. I don't even remember if I woke up yesterday."

The door to the classroom swung open, through it came a portly, older black woman with wild hair.

"I'm glad to see most of you have decided to come back and take the second part of my class! I'd be disappointed to find out some of you didn't want to come back because you loved your free time more than me!" The teacher's cheery disposition was a strong contrast to her students, most of which struggled to keep their heads up to listen to her. Jonathan paid close attention to her, enjoying the light she seemed to bring to the room.

An hour had passed in class, the teacher was in the midst of a power point about the long-term effects of the air pollution in major cities and its links to crumbling bay ecosystems. While observing the slide on the screen, Jonathan felt something prick into his side. The pain wasn't sudden, rather it was building up. Annoyed at the thought it was going to be another case of stomach pains, he braced himself for the pain to come and would take something after he finishes writing his notes for this slide.

Something was wrong. Rather than the pain growing, it instead started to move. Slowly sliding from the left side of his body to the right. Then as if something was going against the flow of his blood, something simultaneously crawled up the center of his chest and spread in his stomach. The sensation was sickening, like roaches skittering all over his skin. Jonathan could feel his throat tighten and sweat drip from his skin. Bile rose in the back of his throat and before it could bubble up further, Jonathan tried to swallow it down.

"I gotta go Lil- "Jonathan whispered to her as he rushed up from his seat as the sensation continued to spread through-out his body. He ran through the vacant hallways to the nearest bathroom. Upon reaching a bathroom, he threw himself in side and took refuge around the lid of the toilet towards the back. His arms clung around the rim and he let his body continue whatever hell it was bringing upon himself. The urge to vomit returned and he felt a rotten syrup fill his mouth.

Jonathan opened his mouth and a black liquid burst from his mouth, splattering the inside of the bowl. With a sudden hit to his back, Jonathan coughed up thick sludge.

"Shit! That isn't good…" Sock's voice came behind him. Jonathan's willingness for anyone to touch him and give him some sort of relief allowed for Sock to touch him. Jonathan continued puking this rotten smelling vile, the scent of it making things worse. Jonathan wondered why Sock stayed quiet after his initial quip. The only proof the demon was still with him was a gentle pat on his back. In a moment of peace, Jonathan looked at what he had vomited from his body. There was something moving, quivering in it, then stopping. Taking a closer look, Jonathan saw tiny fingernails and teeth bob up and down gently.

The bathroom door swung open, somebody came in and cursed under their breath. Like being thrown into a coughing fit by inhaling your own spit, Jonathan suddenly began to violently cough. The motions were so sudden that it caused a hot pain to strike every nerve in his abdomen. Vomiting one more time made the pain go away, just enough to make Jonathan's body feel sluggish. With exhaustion filling his body, Jonathan could feel something pull at the nerves of his retinas. It felt like he was swallowing sea water.

"Hey, do you need help?" Another voice was heard behind Jonathan. It hurt to move, but Jonathan looked behind him. It was enough to see part of the person behind him. It was difficult to even take in a breath to speak.

"Please, no…" Jonathan's grip around the bowl became loose, he let go and his body fell against the cold tile floor. Curling into the fetal position and shutting his eyes tight, Jonathan took in quick breathes. Growing terrified of what was happening, Jonathan could feel his nerves become numb to the pain and felt this wasn't a good sign at all.

"Shit!" Footsteps rushed into Jonathan's stall. After hearing the rustling of clothes, Jonathan felt hands wrap around his torso. Now unable to move, Jonathan had no choice into being dragged from the stall and laid out on something. The person started to touch him, presumably feeling for a pulse.

Jonathan's fingers twitched.

"Are you awake? Can you hear me?" Trying to speak was impossible. Until something spoke for him.

"Aah... I… Ahh… Haa…"

"Hey, can you open your eyes?"

Jonathan sat straight up, causing the person to gasp in surprise. Staring right into the person's eyes. Jonathan recognized him as one of his classmates. He could not move his mouth to stay hello. Instead, he was silent. Unable to control himself.

"H-hey man, you aren't looking so h-hot... Your eyes are all… fucked up." The class mate slowly got up. Even though he was backing up, the man had reached his hand out. "We gotta get you to the campus doctor." Jonathan replied to the command with a low hum. He leapt forward and grabbed the wrist of the man's outstretched hand. "Huh?"

Jonathan's grip grew tighter. He started to pull at the stranger's wrist, getting him to come closer. Jonathan began to whisper under his breath. His other hand dug around his jacket pocket. The hand in his pocket found a pen.

Jonathan was screaming as loud as he could. But nothing came out. All he could do was watch the events unfold before him as the pen in his pocket came slamming into the eye of the poor man. With the haunting image of the young man's face contorting in terror, Jonathan was pulled into blackness.

Holes open like minerals eroding off rocks in a stream.

Water makes the rocks crumbling further, pelting, destroying.

Bury the rocks under more rocks, hide the damage.

Travel along the river, continue on, destroying more rocks as an animal's screech suffocates you.

Jonathan awoke to something splattering against a windshield, a car's horn was blaring. Jonathan whipped his head around and tried figure out where he was. Looking at his hands and looking up, he saw he was seated in his car. Looking out the window, he saw it was raining. There were traces of blood that became smeared by the wiper blades and rain.

"What the fuck…" Was all Jonathan could mutter. He wasn't sure where he was or what he was doing. Scared and confused, he put the car into park, turned off the car which ended the blaring horn, and exited his car. He only left the headlights on. Not caring about the rain, Jonathan got out and looked around. He was in a small, quiet neighborhood, not one that really looked familiar. The road was empty of cars and people. Jonathan walked to the front of his car, there, he saw a woman's body. The older looking woman had blood pooling beneath her, legs twisted around like a French braid.

"Shitshitshitshitshit." Jonathan ran to her. He checked her pulse, she was still alive. Jonathan hurriedly searched his jacket pockets, hoping his phone would be on him. He let out a sigh of relief when he found the device in his back pocket. This temporary relief was lost when the screen wouldn't turn on, only momentarily flashing an empty battery icon.

Panicking, Jonathan gently loaded her into his passenger seat and sped to a nearby house. He got her out and abandoned her body by someone's door step. Jonathan slammed his fist on the door and dashed back to his car. He pulled away quickly, only seeing the front door open minutes after the house became a speck in his rear-view mirror. He prayed no one spotted him and continued to speed down the street, hopefully recognizing a street or something that could tell him where he was.

Jonathan screamed as he heard a sudden gasp in the back seat. Jonathan turned his head to see a body in his backseat, they were struggling to breathe.

"Fuck…"

Jonathan stood in the middle of the living room. Scared, he just came home and laid the body of the young man who had tried to help him earlier on the couch. He had to think of something.

Jonathan started to shake, his fingers barely able to stay straight as he dialed Lil's number. Blood smudged the screen. The dial tone kept ringing until the sound of Lil's voice came through.

"Jon?"

"I need you to come over now. I need your help."

"Where have you been? You never came back to class and some weird shit went down!"

"I can show you this time. Just come over right now!"

"Dude! Someone found blood all over the bathroom and-"

"Somethings wrong Lil, just get here now! Please! Please! Please!" During his shouting, Jonathan saw Sock right before him, his hands holding a wooden rod with a knife attached to the end. The tipoff the blade was pointed right at Jonathan.

"I knew it." Sock said, his usual perky tone now a flat monotone. Jonathan ended the phone call and pocketed his phone.

"What do you know, Sock?"

"You're possessed, dumbass. Just stay inside and we can take care of this..."

"Possession… Wait. Just where have you been? If you could tell there was a demon inside of me, why the fuck didn't you do anything?"

"If I intervene, it could make things worse. This thing just likes to kill. It's not like me. From what you've been experiencing, it'll absolutely lose its shit and just start killing people again. Or, it could even kill you if it wanted to-"

"-And I'm guessing you don't want to end up killing me by accident either?"

"I'm not here for that. And if I can't stab it to death I don't really know how to do anything."

"Then lower your knife, spear, thing." Jonathan looked at the knife that had gotten closer to his chest during the conversation.

"You're not in any danger if you don't move."

"What's your incentive by keeping it there if you don't want to see me hurt?" Jonathan continued to question the demon. They both knew Sock's goal was to get Jonathan to commit suicide. Jonathan's afterlife could be fine if he was murdered or died by other means. But he found out through other impromptu interrogations that Sock's penalty had to be other-worldly levels of terror if Jonathan dies any other way than by his own hand. If that was the only deal Sock was given and he took it, then the idea of being at the devil's will terrified Jon.

Sock began to glare at Jonathan, their mouth full of fangs became a toothy scowl.

"I can still cut your face up."

"But then you wouldn't get to see my beautiful mug in the morning anymore."

"You'd be surprised how much I like to get off to skinned bodies."

"That's what every serial killer wannabe says before they see a real corpse and piss themselves."

"Then when are you gonna start wanking it to snuff films, Jon?"

"Maybe the day you finally do your job, then I'll be surrounded by skinned skeletons-" Jonathan was cut off by the front door slamming open.

"-Yo, Jon, you're lucky I was coming to drop off your stuff anyway! Where you- "Lil choked as she saw the body soaked wet with blood, laying on the couch. "What the fuck!"

"Lil! Don't freak out! Please! I know what this looks like!" Jonathan said as he raced over to the front door, annoyed he neglected to lock the front door.

"Why are you making me an accessory!? Wait, that's Zach from my accounting class!"

"I didn't kill him!" Jonathan exclaimed. A young girl with blonde hair came in right behind Lil and gasped.

"I told you there was something fucked up with him! And that guy isn't even dead yet either."

"He's holier than a wheel of swiss cheese caught in a church shoot out, Jo-jo! How can he still be alive? "Lil said as she tried to settle her shocked nerves. Jo-jo placed a hand on Lil's shoulder.

"I can give a better analysis if I get closer. But from here, it looks like his chest is still slightly raising." Jo-jo floated towards the body, coming into the living room and into the light reviled big feathered wings. After floating through the room and phasing through furniture, Jo-jo gave the body a closer inspection.

"Yeah, these stab wounds don't look that deep. Pretty amateur, they've been made with a small object and miraculously, none of them hit any major organs. In fact, most of them hit bone. Well, those parts aren't fine, they're shattered. He's still there but he's hanging by a thread. If someone gets him to a hospital in the next hour he'll be fine." After rambling on for a while, Jo-jo turns her attention towards Jonathan and points a finger. "You're possessed." Lil joined the group forming by the couch after making sure the blinds were all closed and that the curtains were drawn.

"Well, duh. Murdering isn't really a hobby of mine. How do you suppose the guy bleeding out on my couch even got there?" Jonathan said, making sure to place extra sarcasm on each syllable.

"Jon, chill, we can get this shit figured out." Lil said calmly. "Jo, is there a way we can deal with whatever is wrong with him?"

"Yeah, take the shmuck to a hospital before he bleeds out."

"No! Jon! If he's possessed, then we need to exorcise him. You're an angel! You gotta know something." Lil looked at Jojo with pleading eyes, hoping that the angel would give in.

"Ugh, Fine. But only if it makes you happy." Jo-jo exhaled. She floated closer to Jonathan, then looked him up and down. She then stuck her head right through his torso, specifically beneath his ribcage.

"Can you warn me first!?" Jonathan said as he shivered from the sensation. Jojo popped out seconds later.

"That's gross! Ugh, it's completely embedded in there! This is gonna be tough…"

"What do you mean?" Jonathan asked?

"Are you still a stoner?"

"What? Lil did you tell her? Look, this isn't really the time- "

"Let me explain… You have a lesser demon embedded in your guts. We call it Cancer and it's reeeeally gnarly. It's sort of like a tick mixed with a parasite. It'll keep sucking the life from you and eventually it takes over your mind. What it will do once it takes over your body differs from demon to demon. Symptoms of having it include frequent black outs, fatigue, projectile vomiting, and various other gross things."

"I don't really care what it is, how do we get rid of it?"

"All its gonna need is a simple sage burning. It's something personal and doesn't require the intervention of a priest and looking like some religious nut."

"So, I just need to burn some leaves?" Jonathan said flatly.

"Kinda, yeah."

A smile as thin as a razor blade had crept along jonathans face.

"So, I could've just set fire to some leaves and I wouldn't have corpses to worry about?"

"Jon- "Lil said, interrupting what might've been an uncontrollable rant. "– Don't lose it, I'm sure there's some sort of catch, there always is-"

"-And he one person in this room with working brain cells is correct. You need to swallow it."

"Swallowing hot stuff isn't that hard for ya, is it Jon?"

"SOCK."

"Or the less dangerous route with minimal to no throat burning would be to inhale the smoke. But the hardest part is going to be killing it."

"How do you know all this Jo? You didn't seem like the occult type growing up." Sock said with a sly grin.

"I wasn't. Or maybe I would've if you didn't get me killed! But that's beside the point, Angels are meant to help rid the world of evil, save lives, and all that dumb charity shit. We can't exactly do that without SOME sort of training. Unlike you stupid imps that just need to kill people!"

"Hey! Killing takes a lot of work! Convincing people to kill their fiancés, kill themselves, and slicing through someone's neck is way harder than you think it is! Do you know how hot it needs to be before someone's flesh melts off!?"

"Oh, the boiling temperature of flesh, how useful! Why don't you learn something useful like how to bring your parents back to life! Oh wait, you can't, you're stuck in hell for being a murderous little fuck- "

"Jo-jo that's enough! We have more important things to do than fight over some shit like this! We have more pressing matters!" Lil said, scolding the angel. "Whatever is in him, we gotta get it out."

"Yeah, I kinda don't want to go to prison for something I didn't even do!"

"We'll continue this later- "Jo-jo said, shooting Sock one last glare. "-Lil, get out that pipe you carry around with you." Without questioning the command, Lil pulls out a small glass pipe from her messenger bag. "We're gonna smoke this thing out. Make sure to tie him down some where first."

"We have all night to be kinky, but shouldn't we take care of him first?" Jonathan said, gesturing to the almost corpse on his couch.

"Did he see you trying to kill him?" Lil asked.

"I think the last thing he saw was my pen barreling for his eye." Jonathan responded. Lil gave Jo-jo a pleading look.

"No."

"But Jo! You gotta do something, he's gonna go to jail if we don't."

"I mean if we hide the body well enough, we'll be fine."

"He's still alive! And it's gonna be suspicious if the cops put it together that there was a stabbing and Jonathan didn't come back to class!"

"There's only so much I can do before I'm over stepping my authority. I'm here to be your angel, Lil, not anyone else's."

"Jonathan is one of my only friends. Your job is gonna get a lot harder if I lose one of them" Lil said, trying harder to convince the stubborn angel.

"Ugh! Fine, that dude is near death anyway and IF he lives, if he saw me at all, he can probably chalk up living at all to being a miracle or whatever and hopefully no one will look into how he got to the hospital." Jo-jo got close to the man on the couch. After giving him a closer look, Jo-jo raised her hand, curled it into a fist, and hit Zach on the side of the head.

"He doesn't need more brain damage!" Jonathan exclaimed.

"It's not gonna do that! It's just gonna scramble his recent memory. If I did it right, he shouldn't remember the last 24 hours."

"What if it doesn't work-"

"-not a matter of if it not working, it's a matter of if it worked or if it worked and I turned him into an adult baby. Now, let's get him to a hospital and start this exorcism."

After some time, everything was prepared. The young man was taken care of, Jonathan was tied to a chair in the kitchen, and Lil was grinding down pieces of dry sage to put into the pipe.

"Okay Jon, this should at least start to drive the demon out of you. Since it's been inside of you for a few days, it probably has a pretty tight grip on some of your organs. Since you've said you've been having stomach pains, it probably has made a home for it around that area. So, when it starts to move, you'll know. Brace yourself for it and try not to die."

"So, is this what guardian angels are supposed to be doing? Teaching their humans to exorcize demons?" Jonathan asked.

"No- "Lil answered for Jo-jo. "-I just think this whole demon slaying thing is neat."

"-And she just so happens to be friends with a boy who's haunted by demons."

With the flick of a lighter, Lil begun to heat up the small pipe that was filled with the grounded-up sage.

"You ready?" Lil asked, holding the pipe up to Jonathan's mouth.

"Not like I have much of a choice." Jonathan took a deep breath, sucking in the smoke. Everyone stood quiet. Waiting for something to happen. Lil wrapped a Rosario around a wooden stake she made from a fallen branch in the backyard. She held it tightly in her hand, prepared to jump the second this thing would emerge.

"Are you sure you did it right?" Sock asked Jo-jo.

"It's not gonna happen immediately, dumbass. You gotta give it a bit."

In a moment's notice, Jonathan was violently thrown backwards, the back of the chair he was tied to nearly broke from the impact of being thrusted into the kitchen sink. The others watched him as fear filled their bodies.

Jonathan's body writhed on the floor, his skin grew pale and gray veins became visible. Quick and hearty coughs soon became strangled chokes. Everyone looking in horror saw something begin to drip from Jonathan's mouth, then came a burst of black liquid. Splattering out after the liquid were chunks of what looks to be rotting meat, a sour smell beginning to linger in the air. A squirming tentacle slid out from Jonathan's mouth, it was colored obsidian black with splotches of red and pink. It jutted forward, trying to pull itself out from inside of him. The suction cups on the tentacle cusped the tiles and pulled itself out of his mouth, each thrust forward made it sound as if rope had snapped. Jonathan moaned in pain as it felt like his jaw had dislocated.

Lil tried to go to his aide before Jo-jo stopped her. Understanding the angel's intention, Lil let out a breath and tried to settle her nerves by at least a margin. She stared in abstract horror as Jonathan's throat bulged as the demon continued to thrust out of his mouth. The beast continued growing as it came out, bulging red eyes throbbing on the slimy oblong body and sharp teeth littering the other tentacles that came out after the first. It grows with each millimeter that inches out, flesh taking the appearance of an orange's skin and bloating out.

"That thing is about to pop… Get ready Lil…"

The demon shot itself from Jonathan's mouth. It shot out like a bullet, the fleshy, malformed core slithered across the kitchen floor.

"Fuck! Where'd it go?" Lil shouted as she tightened her grip around the Rosario wrapped stake. The thing let out garbled screeches and squeals. The sounds of the demon and the black sludgy trail it left along the floor and walls was the only way to look for it. As Lil went to trail the demon down, Sock came to Jonathan's aide. For the first time in the first few days, Jonathan was throwing up something that wasn't black sludge.

"Urgh… my insides fucking burn…" Jonathan moaned out between dry heaves. He was unsure what to make of the teeth he spat out, most looked like it belonged to some sort of animal. He counted all of his teeth with his tongue and felt none were missing. This did bring him some horror as he felt strands of hair, pulling them out revealed long, dark brown strands.

Lil ran after the creature, tailing it through the hallway with a blessed stake in hand. It was easy to follow as it left behind a trail of black sludge and gore as if it were a cancerous snail. The sounds of it ramming into the walls and floor was helping as well. She saw it had dipped into the room at the end of the hall.

"Jon's room." Lil leapt into a sprint, trying to keep up with the hellish being. She peered into the black room, she flipped on the light and looked into Jonathan's room. The slime led to the mess of comforters and sheets on top of Jonathan's bed. She crept closer to the bed, cautiously pacing her steps and readying her dagger. Lil braced herself as she ripped the comforters off the bed and threw them behind her. There was nothing.

Then she felt it, a long, slender appendage wrapping itself around her ankle. The thing ripped her down and she saw a pair of eyes that peered from under the bed, they were attached to a face that wasn't human.

Lil panicked as she kicked at the beast, her boots sunk into the strangely soft flesh. The beast screeched in reply and came out from under the bed, making it rise as its body came into full view. It had grown to the size of a great Dane, many different organs covered exposed skin. Mouths littering its body were snarling and drooling. It had taken its own shape, nothing that looked like a man or animal, just a writhing mass of slabs of coagulating blood and tentacles.

"JO-JO!" Lil screeched as she stabbed at the appendage wrapped around her ankle. Upon stabbing the beast's tentacle, it began to sizzle and bubble, dissolving away enough to set Lil free. She discarded the stake and looked for something else to attack the beast with. Grabbing the biggest thing she could find in a moment's notice; her best bet was a guitar case that was leaning against the wall. Lil grabbed the handle of the case and balanced the thinner end with her other hand, it was hefty and had some weight to it. Lil bludgeoned the beast with it until Jo-jo had sprinted into the room.

"Dummy! Why aren't you using the stake!?

"Do you see how big this fucker is? That shit's a tooth pick!" Lil grunted as she used the guitar's base to hit the monster's body.

" _THAT SHIT_ IS BLESSED!"

"Unless it's a Deus ex Machina, it ain't shit!"

"The Rosario is! As long as you have that you can hurt it!" Lil eyed the holy object on the ground far from her. "Have you been listening to me at all?"

"I've been trying not to die!" Seeing the danger Lil was in, Jo-jo joined in and retrieved the stake.

"Keep it up! I'm gonna look for this damned thing's core!" Jo-jo rushed around the monster and tried to find somewhere to jab the stake. The two continued to fight off the tentacles that whipped about.

Lil saw it just then, in the center of this hulking, fleshy blob, was an oddly shaped opening. It was a slit that appeared as if it were breathing, shivering from time to time.

"Jo! I got it!" Lil slammed the base of the guitar case against the blob's discolored body as hard as she could. This sent it staggering back for a moment, allowing time for Jo-jo to toss Lil the blessed stake. Lil threw the case at the blob, sending it back further. Then charging with the stake in her hand, Lil plunges the holy weapon into the slit she had seen before and sends a black viscous liquid out. The force of her charge and the weight of the monster sent them both to the floor. She violently ripped the stake back out and stabbed at the slit. As she sunk the stake back inside the writhing torso, Lil pulled the stake down, the pulsing flesh tore and continues to spray black sludge.

Then she saw it, the meaty core at the center of the body. It squirmed against the exposure to the air, its limbs were entangled with the entrails and tendons of the blob, unable to escape. Its own mouth was wide open, showing it to be filled with tiny, sharp teeth and many black eyes. Lil took advantage of the situation and thrusted her stake downward a final time. It made one squeal of pain before twitching and becoming still. Lil took in a deep breath and tried not to gag at the pungent odor filling the room.

"Fuck… This won't be a nightly thing, will it?"

"Do you want to do this for the rest of your mortal life?" Jo-jo asked. Lil only huffed in response.

After a few minutes, Lil allowed herself to calm down. It seemed to be over. She got off the still form, took hold of one of the blob's appendages, and went to the kitchen with it to meet back up with Jonathan. He was now sitting up, untied, and looking up at Lil in relief. This relief turned into dread once he laid his eyes on the monster.

"That… Thing was in me? That thing should've split…" Jonathan gagged at the thought of what the demon could've done.

"No. It only does that if it doesn't have a host body. Keep in mind shit for brains, it's cancer. It gets pretty wild." Jo-jo said as she examined The Cancer closer. "I've never gotten to look at one this close before…" Jonathan got up from the floor, using the chair to keep steady.

"Well take a good look, because I need that gone! Even IF nobody else can see it other than you guys and me, I don't want to be sucking down breakfast and that thing is decaying on the kitchen table!" Jonathan exclaimed.

"Holy Burial or a Holy Fire."

"Whys it gotta be holy?" Sock questioned.

"If we did it your way, I'm sure we'd be doing this again tomorrow. Not that you've been any help tonight." Jo-jo said glaring at him. While the two bickered, Jon and Lil spoke with each other.

"So, the Rosario, you never struck me as catholic or anything."

"It's the faith in something stronger, Jon. If you believe that you have some sort of higher power fighting with you that's stronger than what you're fighting, it works. I don't care about what is there, but Jo-jo does. And I care about her. I trust her."

"So, if she's an angel, and she believes in a single god, then does that mean there is just one? Cause I mean she's gotta be right if this stuff works. She's seen him, right?"

"I don't give a shit. Whatever helps her, helped me kick this thing's ass and that's all that matters."

"I'm just scared of dying Lil. I almost fucking did."

"Just don't think about it. You worry you die. You don't worry you still die. What's it worth worrying at all."

"Poetic, but I don't wanna die when I'm barely through my twenties. To something that I couldn't help."

After conversing for a short time, the group went to work getting rid of the demon laying on the kitchen table. They took it to the backyard, burying it as far down as they could and forgetting the terrible night. Lil helped clean up before heading home with Jo-jo. Despite the stains in the carpet, the dents in his guitar case, and a fresh grave in the backyard, the events of the night felt like a dreadful nightmare. Jonathan paces through the house once more, looking to see if there was anything he could immediately fix. When he couldn't find one more thing out of place, he trudged towards his room. Thankful that the bed was still in one piece, Jonathan collapsed on top of it. He stared at Sock who was silent.

Sock watched Jonathan from the doorway. He had wanted to ask Sock what he knew. Why he really didn't do anything to help. He knowingly let a creature scurry around his insides and kill people. Jonathan shuttered as he swore there was still something inside of his body. But there was nothing foreign alive in him spare foreign bacteria. The only thing with strength inside of Jonathan were the muscles that forced his eyelids shut.

"Do… Do _you_ want me dead, Sock?" The inquiry slipped from between chapped lips.

"That's a dumb question." The words entered the air. They had no owner

There was nothing there.

Jonathan could only hope that sleep is what took him into the darkness.

For the first time in over a week, he didn't have any dreams.

Jonathan was thrust back into the waking world when something pounced onto his bed. He nearly screamed until he saw the familiar face proudly grinning at him.

"Hey slacker! Nice to know you're still sleeping until 3 in the afternoon!"

Jonathan felt revitalized at the sound of his older sister's voice.

"Holy shit! C! I thought you weren't gonna be here until tomorrow!" Jonathan's head felt thick with memories of last night and the adrenaline of the scare he just received.

"I told my boss to shove it! Especially since it was for a family emergency." The positive pep in Jonathan stopped in an instant. "Gosh, Mom was so excited when I told her I was coming home early! She could barely get a word out before I had to get you up cause I know you'd-"

"Wait- What kind of family emergency?"

"Well, Mom called me yesterday, she said you'd been having nightmares again, and funny enough, I've been having this really weird dream lately! Like there's you going nuts and killing people, being eviscerated, just a lot of killing and death and murdering!"

"Yeah, uh, just, nothing much on my end. Just some weird, weird stuff in my dreams."

"We'll talk over a late lunch, c'mon Scruffy." C stated.

"Yeah, lemme change real quick..." Jonathan got up from his wreck of a bed and dressed himself in something comfortable that wasn't on the floor. He stood still for a moment. Waiting to hear anything out of the ordinary. Despite the silence in his house, he couldn't shake that something was wrong. Walking into the kitchen, Jonathan and C was met with their mother's confused expression.

"Well! I doubt you finished that quickly!" laughed. "Forget something?"

"Not that I can think of… Um. What are you talking about?" Jon asked.

"Pssh! What are you talking about? I saw you out back just a little while ago in the garden. I assumed you were doing yard work considering the mess you left everywhere! I don't even know what that is in the carpet."

"I just woke him up." C said. Jonathan didn't wait a second longer and dashed to the backyard door, ignoring the aches left in his body from last night. Jonathan peered through the window in the door. His mother was right. He was in the backyard. Naked and covered in dirt. He was looking down at something. His wiry brown hair, matted down with wet dirt obscured his face. Jonathan watched as he, himself, it, wildly threw dirt about. Its skin is a sickly green with some sort of cracked pattern spider-webbed over its skin. Jonathan was offended by the fact his mother thought that was him.

He was split on what to do, try and kill it on his own, or call Lil. He ignored his mother's screaming and kept C from charging out the back door.

"If Sock is up to this, I'm gonna kick his ass." Jonathan grumbled beneath his breath.

"Sowachowski. I'm not happy with you." Mephistopheles's eyebrows furrowed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Sock kept his head low as his boss's voice boomed around him. It was terrifying being ripped into hell so suddenly. Standing in Jonathan's room, trying to be cryptic and spooky and suddenly, feeling a thousand hands pull down his ghostly ribcage was a huge shock. Sock was elated his organs stayed inside of his paunch. Being greeted with a statement as such made all said organs knot inside of his throat.

"What's the problem?" Sock said, trying not to shiver.

"The problem is that you're stagnating. You know I sent that Minion of Berith up there to kill him. And I know you know because you didn't do anything to it. You did nothing."

"Well I-"

"Was afraid you're going to hurt the kid? That's part of your job!" After Mephistopheles shouted this, his shoulders relaxed. He exhaled before continuing. "If it weren't for how you've dealt with your other jobs, I'd be angrier with you. But I'm not angry, I'm frustrated. I understand you like him, I really do. In fact, I've had to deal with these kinds of humans too. But I didn't take pity on them, I wasn't kind to her favorites either. But this is your job. I'm going to keep sending more demons to kill this kid. If they get to him before you do, you're finished, and we both know that you aren't gonna get assigned to some low-tier grunt work."

"I know. I'll try harder to get him to kill himself." Sock said, unable to be defiant against the words of his boss.


End file.
